i read carefully all of your comments on our last two essayists, Michael Christopher Brown and James Chance….both received almost unanimous “thumbs up” votes from the readers here on the essays presented…both are working in the documentary style of “bearing witness”, and yet this seems to be a good time to point out how quite different are these two fine photographers….
first i would suggest that Mike created his own narrative out of simply his own desire to make an essay out of Sakhalin…there was no inherent or obvious “story” to be told….there was no editorial reason for an editor to jump up and say “yes, let’s do a story on Sakhalin”…it would not be number one on the IMPORTANT list…but alas, the essay succeeds quite simply because Mike decided to do it…period….Mike made it important…..and he used his approach and his visual authorship to create a mood and a “style” and because of the power of the “vision” itself , a story has been told…
this is quite different from James, who had a “built in subject” in editor’s parlance…..tell an editor that you have found a place where people live in a cemetery and eyebrows automatically raise….the subject is obvious…James just might pique your curiosity about the Manila cemetery even before you have seen picture number one….we are shocked automatically because of the subject matter…period…the “story” is not created by James’ vision , but by the nature of the topic at hand….this is not to say that James was not “seeing”, but i think you can see the wide difference from an editor’s point of view…..
James photographed something that was THERE….Mike photographed something that was in his HEAD…i could easily imagine so many different approaches to the cemetery that would work, because no matter what there are people living in tombs…interesting by nature….i could also easily imagine many a photographer going to cold stoic Sakhalin and coming back with absolutely nothing….in other words, it really takes a photographer with a point of view and a real “look” to pull of a Sakhalin style essay…and it takes a good journalist to create the multi-media piece James gave us…both totally valid..
James used pictures to TELL a story…..Mike used photographs to MAKE the story….
when editors at magazines choose one photographer over another for an assignment, these are things they think about…who is going to do THIS story best? some stories are suited for one photographer, while others would be best done by someone else…in “movie speak” this is called “casting” and this is not much different in photoland…matching photographer to subject and the expectations of results is what “assigning” is all about….if you were an editor, would you send James to Sakhalin and Mike to the cemetery? do you think both would do great essays in both places? hmmmm, something to ponder for sure….they of course would both be “good” if they traded places, but a magazine editor might think long and hard about this one…
now these are subjects that i have discussed at great length with both men…i have had the opportunity to sit down in person with James Chance on several occasions to edit cemetery , so he knows what i think….the same for Mike Brown…we edited Sakhalin at my apartment just before i published….both men studied photography at almost the same time from the same university and with the same teachers….Ohio University has over the years been a leader in producing talent for newspapers and magazines…and is probably the largest rival school for the famed University of Missouri….both schools go competitevly neck and neck with a long list of very successful graduates ….i have no doubt that both James and Mike will be two photographers on the “A” list for top editors to choose, despite their differences……who gets chosen for what will be interesting to see…
so i have a question for all of you, albeit oversimplified for the purpose of discussion…..
do you see yourself as a photographer who needs a strong clear subject in front of you in order to work, or do you prefer to “invent” the concept in your head and carve interesting photographs out of “nothing” ???
All… THE SLIDESHOW again… its just that i forgot to mention that YOU HAVE TO change the timing of the slideshoe from 3 seconds to 5 seconds , so you have enough time to read the “stoopid” captions… Some photos shot by DAH himself…
http://picasaweb.google.com/innerspacecowpanos/JailTimeDogBiteInVenice?authkey=Gv1sRgCK_b2ZKvw97VCw#slideshow
ok….. i cant help it
cant help it
cant help it
cant resist……………
NEW LINK NUMBER 2
NEWER LINK NUMBER 2
NEWER LINK NUMBER 2
NEWER LINK NUMBER 2……………. “UNAPPRECIATED VENICE”…………..
click below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/innerspacecowpanos/VeniceNotAppreciated?authkey=Gv1sRgCJnfxq_c9s_THA#slideshow
enjoy y’all… & dont forget to link me back with some “knowledge”…;-)))))))))))))))
link 1:( JAIL TIME , DOG BITE IN VENICE )
http://picasaweb.google.com/innerspacecowpanos/JailTimeDogBiteInVenice?authkey=Gv1sRgCK_b2ZKvw97VCw#slideshow
link 2:( VENICE NOT APPRECIATED )
http://picasaweb.google.com/innerspacecowpanos/VeniceNotAppreciated?authkey=Gv1sRgCJnfxq_c9s_THA#slideshow
link 1:( JAIL TIME , DOG BITE IN VENICE )
http://picasaweb.google.com/innerspacecowpanos/JailTimeDogBiteInVenice?authkey=Gv1sRgCK_b2ZKvw97VCw#slideshow
link 2:( VENICE NOT APPRECIATED )
http://picasaweb.google.com/innerspacecowpanos/VeniceNotAppreciated?authkey=Gv1sRgCJnfxq_c9s_THA#slideshow
Panos…. Fuck! where do you hid those pictures? Great!!! I am still your biggest fan!
Peace
David and All,
Do you know http://www.ninja-mag.com/ ?
It is a magazine of photography, we can download 114 pages for the price of a phone call (or of a SMS)…. just a thought for Burn magazine…
best, audrey
Marcin,
What YOU just said means the world to me..
I’m just a bad editor.. That’s all..
Thanks again..
I just can’t wait for DAH to wake up..
( drinking Polish vodka now…)
DAH and Young James:
You were close David. The micrometer is neither a microcentimeter nor a millimeter, but it does exist. These are the things you remember when you spend to much time in the Biology lab in college.
In any event, I agree with you here David. We’ve seen lots of high quality multimedia pieces come out in the last two years. Some have incorporated video, but I’ve always found the video portion jarring. I have always found that the strongest pieces incorporate quality stills and audio. Perhaps this is because the quality of video has been up to par with the quality of the stills and the audio, but until we figure out how to mix the three mediums well, I personally prefer to keep video out.
In the last line of the last posting I meant to say “the quality of video has NOT been up to par with the quality of the stills and audio”
charlie, jim, david, james…..
i´m in agreement with the still and sound blend.
video, for me, can really add to a piece – such as the brilliant MM piece about swimming screened through road trips a while ago – (too busy to look for the piece or the photographer right now)… often it just does not seem to mix well..
i love ´moving photographs´, or film which is framed such as a photograph within which people are moving.. jim jarmouch films spring to mind.. dead man ..perhaps..
what interests me much more when i see it incorporated is the series of photos presented like stop frame animation.. you know, when a snapper shoots 4 or 5 photos looking for ´the one´.. seeing these in a MM piece is interesting since it illustrates some of the photographic technique of the author.. it is something i am looking at with my work now.
i think or this stop-frame animation process as being similar to looking at contact sheets which is fascinating.. seeing the shots around the single shot which was chosen..
as had been said before i just cannot imagine myself shooting video, unless it were camera mounted and in some way illustrative of the shooting process – ´war photographer´ style..
what is strange about newspapers and the like asking snappers to video or write, writers to snap, is that the approach is utterly different.. a writer does not move in the same way – nor a photographer – in order to do the job justice..
i know i´m repeating here.. just adding my thoughts.,
david
The convergence is driven as much by financial reality as technology. Newspapers simply can’t afford separate staffs shooting video for the web and stills for the newspapers, so we have be thinking about both media when shooting a story. Like you, though, I think the pure video piece is much better than one in which video and stills are mixed.
I’m just blown away by the stop frame animation stuff. For exactly the reasons you suggest. I want to learn to do that. I forget the first time I saw the technique used with stills, but it knocked me out.
jim..
it´s a real shame that editors are thinking this way now.. imagine missing a great photo because of fiddling with video..
i guess where it could all go – and in some instances has already – will be lifting stills from video.. sending out pure videographers and asking them to select stills from that whole.. they will neither be good videos nor good stills..
here is a little stop frame piece which the bjp ran recently – because it was banned from screening at an arts fest in derby..
i like it.. random.. energetic.. and speaks to me about the atmosphere of bringing a child into the world..
just plain studpid that it was banned..
http://www.1854.eu/2009/02/censored_art_work_at_derby_fes.html
david
perhaps BURN could provide an outlet for the above piece which derby CC has banned? i´d love to read opinions on it..
which reminds me – i love the discussions on photo essays and single photos.. i know it´s being considered that they will stop and i hope thats not going to happen :ø)
just thoughts.
david
this seems a good resource.. i have yet to tuck into it – just passing on.
http://fjordphoto.org/feed/
panos
what bemuses me, and you admit you are no editor, is that you post a lot of poor photos with a handful of good ones.. it is the photographic equivalent of placing bets on all horses and i don´t get interested in that.
you have some good photos, sure.. arguably though anyone or thing will take enough photos if prodded to produce some good ones.
a guy back in notts attached a camera to a dogs lead and snapped randomly and remotely – and got some superb work out of it once edited.. it made a book and exhibit.. he was acting purely as editor and the dog was photographer.
you have a handle on the technical approach and that’s great – to push forward though, for me, you have to start editing your work yourself and learning why a good photo is a good photo. if not it seems that your interest in snapping is limited to the practice of snapping which, while fun and somewhat purposeful, is only half the story.
if you are going to post critiques as outrageous as you do it would be great to see your learning curve adapt to illustrate some knowledge on editing.. otherwise i feel like i am just looking at the collected random photos of someone hedging their bets which isn´t convincing to me – after all, give anyone a camera and enough time and they are bound to show a little talent… plenty of people do..
it´s in the edit that i think you can illustrate your understanding and purpose beyond the act of pressing a button, which is the starting point achieved by so many since digital…
i took the liberty of pointing rafael towards BURN saying he could submit the banned essay above ( http://www.1854.eu/2009/02/censored_art_work_at_derby_fes.html ) to burn for inclusion.
i really hope it gets up here.. especially within the context of a banned piece of work.. i think it´s interesting, combines video, stills, audio and SAUCE.. so could provoke a good discussion..
:ø)
Hi David,
Thank you for your detailed and constructive post to Panos. It has gone along way to projecting my feelings.
I am not as diplomatic as yourself and have been struggling to find an appropriate way to convey my thoughts.
I don’t want to temper enthusiasm for a great art form and career, but “machine gun” technique was never the way forward.
Regards
ian
i know this guy, a clever guy, too clever for his own good sometimes, for ages he used to broadcast this single question like a broken record. i don’t know if he thought it up, but he sure thought it was important, here it is:
Why do you photograph?
it seems like such an innocent question, but if it looks innocent to you and you can’t answer it easily without sarcasm and without submitting a novel, well you likely don’t know that answer yet and it’s probably the most important question for you to explore if you want to truly reconcile doing something you love doing with the fruits of your effort.
it took me ages to understand that question well enough to begin the process of answering it, and later, with that answer, start aligning my photographic actions with that answer. i can surely say that photography is now my bliss now that i understand better why i photograph.
Jim Powers sometimes when i read what you write i wonder if you think everyone’s answer to this question is the same as yours and if it’s not the same as yours then it should be everyone’s aspiration. So my question to you is a different:
Why do you think everyone has the same reason to photograph as yourself?
i don’t think your questions or comments are ever wrong Jim, just not right for everything and everyone you paste them to; and possibly explains why the question are not always welcomed with the same degree of wisdom and entitlement with which you deliver them.
wot e sayed
wot e sayed.
a truly html effort from joe there…
I can’t keep up here. As soon as a good discussion starts on which I might have something to say, and I chew on it a little while, it’s long past. But, regarding newspapers, trends, and what it all means, I dumped my post about the industry and google and freelance potential in favor of just this video. NOW is the most exciting of times, of accelerating exponential growth and change, it is the time of innovators. Gone are the days of centralized information generation and control. Gone are the days of corporate media gods. The gods are dead. Traditional employment in the industry is dead. We are all publishers now and the cream will rise to the top much faster because of it. I would argue that the true financial incentive in journalism, perhaps the ONLY incentive for the future, IS in independent multimedia creation, in convergence, in innovation. Technology has slipped the chains. So, to quote the ending of a recent blockbuster movie, “What the fuck have you done today?” (and I say this as much to myself as anyone else in an encouraging, get up off the floor, get back in the game kind of way because this is the breaking dawn of the golden age of independent content.)
This is one of the most popular videos on youtube, and its been played in boardrooms from Sony to Ford. Think about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY
Joe, everyone has their own reasons to photograph. I’m probably making bad assumptions, but I wonder why people would be submitting their work to a project like Burn magazine if they are only talented amateurs who have no interest in being professionals? I thought that was everyone’s goal in this specific venue. The goal to produce books or essays or single photos that might bring more than an atta boy.
If this is simply another workshop for folks with time on their hands, then tell me now.
Jim, the point of Burn is to teach people how to be professionals — which means submitting your work for consideration by people with different viewpoints, to learn from editors and peers, and to showcase the work to people who might be in a position to take your career to the next level. I don’t know why this is so hard for you to fathom.
There is much to be gained — by everyone, regardless of skill level or aspiration — by participating in Burn, whether as a contributor of photos or commentary or as a lurker. Learning how to talk about and to critique photography is a skill worthy of developing, whether you are shooter, editor, or aficionado. Photography occupies such a marginal place in the national discourse. Learning how to examine, evaluate, and respond to photography is important if photography is going to matter at all to anyone.
I find it odd that you, Jim, after a 40-year career are so troubled by Burn and the images here. The world is different now. No one will have the career trajectory you did. Photographers who are starting out now will reach levels of professionalism, in terms of skill and financial viability, in ways fundamentally different from what was available to you years ago. I’m glad you have been able to shoot almost every day of your adult life and get paid for it. But there are a thousand different ways now to make one’s way in the world as a photographer. That has been the whole point of Burn.
i don’t disagree with what you said Jim, it’s just that as many photographic intentions that there are out there, there is an almost equal amount of audiences for those intentions.
for me Burn is all about the multitude of intentions the force me to think about what kind of audience could appreciate this; heck, half the time i wonder what the intention was at all, but most of the time when i figure it out i’m glad i made the effort.
i used to think this was David’s sole intention for Burn, to unhinge all the dogma and force us to rethink things purely by his promotion of the work and thus his endorsement of something we should spend time thinking about. So i’m likely wrong about this place as well ;-)
but to the point, intention is not perfection; i look for perfection of intentions in other places. For me it’s the diamonds in the rough that fascinate me about this place and more so the effort of so many jewellers to explore how the stone should be cut, could be cut, should not be cut at all, these are things that can not be done with a finished gem.
it’s in this spirit that we all become co-collaborators, people that take the time to understand first the intention and then unleash all the ideas and possibilities to make that intention happen better than it already has or celebrate it for perfection, but perfection is pretty ambitious, but nothing is really possible without knowing the intention.
unfortunately i think there is pressure on David to pitch the stones on Burn as cut and end the comments, or for me the mad discussion amongst jewellers. If this means that more stones will appear then more stones is better than no stones i suppose, but i do think much of the energy of Burn is really the magic of a bunch of jewellers receiving a new stone and either making an effort to understand all of its facets and exploring the possibilities, or being one of the hundreds of others enjoying the conversation that’s taking place.
so maybe we’re both wrong Jim ;-)
joe – just enjoyed your warehouse series.. some strong photos in there mate, and a nicely worked story – seems you caught most of the peripherals :ø)
will have to visit edin and revisit some excess with you.
cheers
david
superb !
Live Q&A with Bruce Gilden on Twitter
Mark you calendars: Live Q&A with Magnum Photographer Bruce Gilden on Twitter, Tuesday March 3rd 10am EST
just got that through the magnum facebook thing.
just been watching an excellent front line club live chat with reza through BJP blog..
interesting stuff.
JOE…
you are not wrong about my intent for BURN….and i do not want to “end the comments”…i just want to have them in one place….it is not a philosophical reasoning, but rather a technical or aesthetic one…and i could very well be wrong about the flow…if so, i will come back to this format…
again, there is no “pressure” on me from anyone other than well meaning friends who just want BURN to be the best it can be…i hold your opinion in just as high regard as i do theirs…so, let’s just see how it goes for awhile with the comments all coming under Dialogue….
in any case, i would not want to stop in any way your stream of thoughts…you are among the most thought provoking writers we have here….by the way, i totally missed your post the first time around your post offering potential support for Lisa…it is in this altruistic spirit that BURN exists at all..good on you Joe…
please consider yourself invited to our annual Magnum fiesta which will be in London at the end of June….i have already invited Ben and David B…details will be forwarded to you soonest….
cheers, david
PRESTON….
i totally forgot that you are in the UK…at least i think so…??? yes yes, you must come to the Magnum meeting/party as well..usually the last Thursday in June, but i will send you specifics …we move the meeting each year between our three offices and this year the host is the London office….with the economy in a down slide, we may not have quite the extravagant bash as has been sometimes the case, but we will make you feel quite at home nevertheless…
cheers, david
Hi, David. Well, I was in the UK in January and will be back there at some point soon — I have much more work to do. Perhaps late June would be a good time to go. As for the crumbling world economy, your beer may be cheap, David, but I’m sure it will be plentiful!
With thanks,
Preston
for ERICA..
http://2point8.whileseated.org/2009/02/27/michael-itkoffs-street-portraits-exhibition-and-book/
:ø)
not sure i am a fan of these.. unable to find larger copies online at this time of night.
yawn.
witty, though – and i like that ..
oh… right… just 2 clicks and there they are..
http://www.michaelitkoff.com/streetportraits.php
must sleep.. 6 hours of student appraisals in morning..
DAH thanks :-)
Bruce Gilden is answering questions over at the Magnum twitter, here:
http://twitter.com/magnumphotos
i had to miss this today so i showed his M in M piece ´bruce has a ball´ during the lunchbreak.. really enjoying these live chats.
http://www.reuterspix.com/congo/